Camisard. A military term for a night attack, after the Camisards, Protestant insurgents of the seventeenth century, who, wearing a camise, or peasant’s smock, conducted their depredations under cover of night.
Camomile Street. From the herbs that grew on the waste north of the city.
Campania. An extensive plain outside Rome, across which the “Appian Way” was constructed. The word comes from the Latin campus, a field.
Campden Square. From the residence of Sir Baptist Hicks, created Viscount Campden.
Canada. From the Indian kannatha, a village or collection of huts.
Canary. Wine and a species of singing bird brought from the Canary Islands, so called, agreeably to the Latin canis, on account of the large dogs found there.
Candia. Anciently Crete, called by the Arabs Khandæ, “island of trenches.”
Candy. An Americanism for sweetmeats. The Arabic quand, sugar, gave the French word candi.
Canned Meat. An Americanism for tinned meat.
Cannibal. See “[Caribbean Sea].”